2025 Grant Award "Scialog: Molecular Basis of Cognition"

​A Presence of Departed Acts: Understanding Multisensory Interference and Working Memory Capacity with Focus on Olfactory Interactions

• ​Ann-Sophie Barwich (History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine/Cognitive Science, Indiana University)
• Wilma Bainbridge (Psychology, University of Chicago)

Working memory is the brain’s mental scratchpad, juggling limited information from our senses. While sight and sound have been studied extensively, smell remains a mystery. Barwich and Bainbridge collaborate to explore how the brain processes odors alongside other senses, using a novel time-locked and precise sniff-EEG protocol developed in Barwich’s lab to track how smells compete or cooperate with visual and auditory inputs. Do they share the same mental space neural resources, or does smell operate independently? This project aims to uncover how this often-overlooked sense integrates into our mental world, offering new insights into the architecture of memory itself.

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